Three's A Crowd
by BlameThePlotBunnies
Summary: Sequel to 'In The Club', this fic catches up with the Lestrade-Holmes family fourteen years after the twins' birth. Greg is the DI we all know and love, and Sherlock is now consulting part time for the met, among others.


**A/N Well Hello there! This has been up a few days on AO3 but things have been a bit manic here of late. Nonetheless, here it is, as promised! The first installment of the sequel to In The Club! Enjoy :)**

221b Baker Street was absolutely silent when DI Greg Lestrade arrived home from work. From the second he heard nothing but traffic noise as he stepped out of the cab, he was on his guard. In anyone else's house, silence might be an indicator of peace and harmony. 14 years of living with his partner, Sherlock Holmes, and their three children - Maddy, 16 and twins Lucy and Jasper, 14 - had taught Greg to take silence rather more seriously. In the Lestrade-Holmes household, silence could mean anything at all. It could mean everyone was out, or it could mean everyone was dead and he was seconds from joining them. That wasn't entirely an extreme example. More normally though, it could mean that he had missed the chaos and was needed only to clean up and ensure everyone got their tea before midnight, or it could mean that the chaos was just about to begin. Given that chaos at 221b could range from a barrage of paint filled water bombs and a kamikaze child to a ninja with a machete, via one of Sherlock's experiments going ka-boom (as the bloody things were wont to do), Greg was inordinately fonder of the first option. If everyone was out, at least he could guarantee clean clothes, attached limbs and a tea that took place at teatime.

In the living room he found Sherlock studiously ignoring his elder brother, Mycroft, who was sipping tea and looking half irritated, half amused (nothing abnormal there then). In one of two ground floor bedrooms, he found Jasper writing an A-Level Chemistry paper "because it's more interesting than my homework Da!". With a half-hearted order of "do your real homework, Jas", (also nothing out of the ordinary), Greg passed on to the bathroom, in search of the two women in his life. It was here that the chaos was apparently centred.

"What the hell are you doing?" Greg exclaimed, as he entered the ominously vapour filled bathroom and found Lucy, wearing an apron and white rubber gloves, carefully stirring a beaker of ammonia scented goo which was balanced on the side of the bath tub, while Maddy was standing in front of the sink, critically examining her gingery blonde hair.

"Dad helped us make Maddy some hair dye, Da." Lucy said brightly

"I'm going for purple." Maddy put in.

"You most certainly are not." Greg said, having taken a very deep breath.

"But Da!" Maddy exclaimed, spinning around to glare at him incredulously "Dad said-"

"Yes, well, I'll deal with him later. You are not dying your hair _any_ colour with that stuff, let alone purple!"

"It's perfectly safe, Da." Lucy said, soothingly. "Dad knows what he's doing with chemicals. Besides, purple will suit Maddy. The book says so."

"What book?"

"This book." Lucy hefted a pink tome out of the bath to show him, knocking the beaker off in the process. "Oh hell!" She exclaimed, leaping up and dropping the book back in the bath with a clang. "Don't worry Da, I'll clean it up, I'll just- Oh…"

The three of them gazed at the cream bathmat as the goo spread, promptly burning a sizable hole in it.

"Ah." Said Maddy

"You still want to put that stuff on your head?" Greg asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Um. Not really, no."

"Good." Greg turned to his other daughter "Luce, go ask your Dad how we clean this up, there's a good girl."

Lucy jumped over the goo-hole and departed at a run, yelling "Dad! The hair dye is eating the soft furnishings! Make it stop!" at the top of her lungs.

"You know there is an easier way, right?" Greg remarked, as he and Maddy ducked out of the bathroom after her.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. We could just buy you some hair dye. You could just, y'know, ask."

"Can I get some hair dye please?"

"Sure. On one condition."

Maddy groaned. "I knew it!"

"One condition." Greg repeated, firmly "You can dye the blonde out of your ginger or the ginger out of your blonde. No daughter of mine is having purple hair while living under this roof."

"So if we move…"

"No."

"It was worth a shot." She grinned. "I think I'd like to go blonde."

"Right, well, go peel me some spuds and we'll go after tea." He stepped back to allow Sherlock to fly past into the bathroom, trailing Lucy and a very amused looking Mycroft. "If, that is, your father hasn't managed to melt the house by then."

**End Note: To those of you who looked at Maddy's age and are thinking 'Whaaaaaaaaat?', i didn't screw up, wait and see :)**

**To those who didn't notice, 'you see but do not observe' but you should still wait and see :)**


End file.
